All Rise...

The Charge

"Civilized man, or so it seems to me, must feel that he belongs
somewhere in space and time, that he consciously looks forward and looks back.
And for this, he needs a minimum of stability."—Lord Kenneth
Clark

The Case

The ideological center of Civilisation can be summed up in two words,
the very words which form the title of the thirteenth and final episode: heroic
materialism. Kenneth Clark, eminent British art professor, takes the approach of
most mainstream thinkers of his time, that history is guided by great
individuals, and their accomplishments can be marked by the products they made.
Civilisation is not so much a survey of great ideas. It is a survey of
great stuff. Monumental architecture, powerful statuary, profound art,
clever inventions—these are the artifacts that prove the triumph of
western culture.

It makes sense for a television documentary. It is, after all, really hard
to show ideas. If you are going to show the development of "Reason,"
you talk about Reason while showing some highly organized architectural
structure. The audience can see how Reason is established in physical form. But
it also shifts the focus away from the development of social theory in favor of
material objects. We rarely see in Civilisation how the ideas that
developed over the course of 1500 years of western history impacted politics.
Politics seems more of a distraction from the production of art.

At once patronizing (he seems mildly amused by the mythology of
"pagans") and erudite (he can sum up the qualities in an art work in a
few precise words), Clark is like a comfortable professor who has been teaching
the same core class for decades from frayed and yellowed lecture notes. He walks
into the classroom, reads his lecture notes, expects no discussion from his
audience, and then confidently walks back to his book-lined office. Don't expect
anything on the cutting edge here; don't look for cynicism or irony. In a
strange way, this is a bit refreshing, a throwback that takes on a charming
retro quality. At least the show is up front about its bias, as it bears the
subtitle "A Personal View by Kenneth Clark." This is his show, his
view of history, even if it was to some extent the general view of English
culture at the time.

It would be easy to dismiss Civilisation as stuffy and old fashioned.
Remember that when this premiered in 1969 on British television, the idea of
focusing an extended documentary series around the voice of one scholar, like
taking a university seminar on television, had never really been tried. The
success of this show led to the television careers of unlikely public television
stars like Alistair Cooke (America), Carl Sagan (Cosmos), and one
of my personal favorites, James Burke (Connections). Even producer David
Attenborough took his turn hosting several nature series, including Life on
Earth.

The formula pioneered by Clark now looks so familiar that we do not even
notice it any longer: moving camera shots of buildings or natural locations,
accompanied by eloquent voice-over by the host; brief recreations of the period;
then the host himself turns up on location, talking to us from the rocky
prominence of some stormy coastline, or along a canal in Venice. Sometimes we
get a "I used to visit this island in my childhood and was awed by the wide
expanse of the sea, which must have inspired these sailors to—" kind
of story. The reason the formula caught on is that Clark does it so well. He
makes what was, in 1969, stuffy intellectualism friendly and accessible. He
never apologizes for remarks that would make younger scholars blanch, as when he
says of a baptistery that survived the barbarian invasions of Europe that,
although it may be crude, at least "it isn't just a wigwam." It takes
until the third episode before women turn up in history and culture, and Clark
is clearly puzzled as to why anybody would waste their time with such
creatures.

The show runs slower, and Clark is a more sedate host, than what we are used
to from more recent "host-centered" documentary series. These days, we
would get more battle sequences and political correctness. We would hear about
how people actually lived (and not just artists and monarchs), and we would
likely get more of the downside of the white man's burden. And all that tends to
make contemporary documentaries as homogenous and dull as the knock-offs of
Clark's work that those "hipper" shows are trying to react against.
This brings the television history documentary full circle in a way: Clark's
work now looks new and different compared to the current standard. So much for
Civilisation's view of progress, the idea of "the ascent of western
man," as Clark puts it at one point. The history documentary circles back
on itself.

Civilisation consists of 13 hour-long episodes, taking a historical
approach to art by tracking the ups and downs of European history. For a BBC
series that is almost as old as I am, Civilisation is in remarkable
shape. Time has only softened the video quality a reasonable amount. So pull up
a chair, and let's visit the great monuments of western art.

• "The Skin of Our Teeth:" Clark begins with a quote
from Ruskin that validates the view that civilization can only be truly
understood by studying art. He implies civilization is about to be overrun by
barbarians, so he offers to start the journey with a look at the last total
collapse of reason and culture: when the barbarians destroyed the glory of Rome,
then swept through Europe to threaten all the great accomplishments of good
Christians. Fortunately, Charlemagne, "the first great man to emerge from
the darkness," saved us all.

• "The Great Thaw:" There is a sequence in EPCOT's
"Spaceship Earth" ride where we see (and smell) the burning of Rome
and then pass through a scene of monks quietly toiling away copying books.
(There is also a facing scene of Islamic scholars, but don't look for
Civilisation to talk much about that.) One monk is napping at his desk,
an ecclesiastical Rip Van Winkle who is awaiting the bright dawn of the
Renaissance around the next corner of the ride. Yes, the second episode of
Civilisation is about the struggle to overcome that "Dark Age"
during which nothing apparently happened in the world (world meaning Europe, of
course). Watch our "leap forward" from ignorance to artistic
enlightenment, embodied by cathedrals. Big, heavily decorated cathedrals.

• "Romance and Reality:" The parade of heroic figures
keeps coming. Religion is represented by St. Francis of Assisi; the arts are
advanced by Giotto and Dante. Clark follows the development of "the gothic
imagination." Now that the courtly love tradition begins to enter art,
Clark also finally starts talking about women, at least as embodiments of
abstract ideas like, say, Chastity and Nature. He seems to find placing women at
the center of things a touch absurd and courtly love poetry
"unreadable." Even Dante (who paid so much honor to his Beatrice) is a
little suspect in Clark's eyes. I was waiting for him to throw in an aside about
how women in the medieval world had cooties too.

• "Man: The Measure of All Things:" Now that we have
devoted some time to those bothersome females, we are back to talking about what
counts. Yes, men. Even better, artistic men. Clark takes a look at the
Renaissance, where, in his effort to say something new about a picked-over
subject, his sense of humor really comes to the fore.

• "The Hero As Artist:" Here are the heavyweight
contenders in Clark's survey of art history: Raphael, Michelangelo, and
Leonardo. In 1969, getting to see color footage of the work of these artists was
a new experience for homebound British audiences. Now, you have probably seen
this stuff a million times. And no, before you ask, no secret Da Vinci codes
revealed here.

• "Protest and Communication:" Clark finally focuses on
a group of thinkers known more for their words. Erasmus, Luther, and Shakespeare
reshaped written language and reflected the radical intellectual shift of their
age. Still, we spend more time looking at pictures of them than learning the
details of their ideas or listening to their words. We do get to see some
Shakespeare performed by the likes of Ian Richardson and Patrick Stewart.

• "Grandeur and Obedience:" The Counter-Reformation
provided the Catholic Church an opportunity to produce—guess
what—more opulent art. Michelangelo (again!), Caravaggio, and Bernini rose
to the task, and their work led to the Baroque.

• "The Light of Experience:" The power of the Church
gives way to the power of Reason, epitomized by thinkers like Descartes and
realistic painters of the rising middle class like Rembrandt and Vermeer. And
don't forget the rise of trading empires like Holland.

• "The Pursuit of Happiness:" Although every episode is
backed by period music, this is also the first time that Clark calls attention
to the connection between architectural harmony and the structure of music,
particular as this is the age of Bach and Mozart.

• "The Smile of Reason:" Welcome to the Enlightenment,
seen through the windows of Versailles and Monticello and the words of Voltaire
and Jefferson. Science, wit, and intellect were prized above all. Once again,
though, we see more about the places where people like Voltaire wrote than
actually hear any of the words of Voltaire that changed thought in Europe.

• "The Worship of Nature:" Time to take off your shoes
and run in the grass. Romanticism reigns. From Rousseau's view of "natural
man" to the paintings of Constable and Turner, with a detour to actually
quote the Marquis de Sade (I'll give him a point for that one), we see how
nature inspired a generation.

• "The Fallacies of Hope:" The reason of the
Enlightenment reaches its apotheosis in the impulsive utopian visions of
Napoleon, Beethoven, and Byron. Oh, as Wordsworth said, "to be young was
very heaven." But soon, the revolutions would give way to disillusion and
cynicism.

• "Heroic Materialism:" Don't expect anything about
Twentieth Century art in this series. Clark does not even pretend to understand
or respect anything after 1900, but he has plenty to say about the end of the
Nineteenth Century which led to the grim modern era that seems to mark the end
of civilization for him. He does see hope in a history of humanitarianism,
"the great achievement of the Nineteenth Century."

The final disc of this four-disc set includes a photo gallery and a
23-minute interview with Sir David Attenborough about the grand old days of
BBC-2 and the production of Civilisation. A good deal of the story is
repeated in the long booklet insert.

Clark's series was the first major British documentary series in color, and
its length and logistical difficulty made it quite the experiment in 1969. Let
me repeat what should be apparently from the summaries above: this is all
Kenneth Clark's opinionated view of western art and culture. More power to him
to for not apologizing for it. When he calls Dutch painter Frans Hals
"odiously skillful" or gripes about Rousseau's "defects as a
human being," you have to chuckle, whether you agree or not. He is quite
proud to admit that he is "a stick in the mud" that believes in old
fashioned values. More power to him. But you might want to check
Civilisation—The Complete Series out of the library first to see if
this is too old school for your tastes.